1. CS459/559 Human-Computer Interaction Introduction to Usability and the User Experience 8-29-2007 Prof. Searleman, jets@clarkson.edu

2. Outline “Cheers” and “Jeers” good & bad designs Usability & User Experience HW#1HW#1 posted, due next Wednesday, 9/5/07 Activity Fair tonight, 7 – 8 pm, Cheel Arena

3. Recap HCI has moved beyond designing interfaces for desktop machines About extending and supporting all manner of human activities in all manner of places Facilitating user experiences through designing interactions Make work effective, efficient and safer Improve and enhance learning and training Provide enjoyable and exciting entertainment Enhance communication and understanding Support new forms of creativity and expression

4. Examples of bad and good design Cheers & Jeers class exercise

5. CheersJeers Current Clarkson Webpage

6. CheersJeers Peoplesoft

7. What is involved in the process of interaction design 1.Identifying needs and establishing requirements for the user experience 2.Developing alternative designs to meet these 3.Building interactive prototypes that can be communicated and assessed 4.Evaluating what is being built throughout the process and the user experience it offers

8. Core characteristics of interaction design Users should be involved through the development of the project Specific usability and user experience goals need to be identified, clearly documented and agreed at the beginning of the project Iteration is needed through the core activities

9. Why go to this length? Help designers: –understand how to design interactive products that fit with what people want, need and may desire –appreciate that one size does not fit all e.g., teenagers are very different to grown-ups –identify any incorrect assumptions they may have about particular user groups e.g., not all old people want or need big fonts –be aware of both people’s sensitivities and their capabilities

10. Are cultural differences important? 5/21/1960 versus 21/5/1960? Which should be used for international services and online forms? Why is it that certain products, like the iPod, are universally accepted by people from all parts of the world whereas websites are reacted to differently by people from different cultures?

11. Designed to be different for UK and US customers What are the differences and which is which? What should Anna’s appearance be like for other countries, like India, South Africa, or China? Anna, IKEA online sales agent

12. Usability and The User Experience

13. What Is Usability?

14. How Should We Measure Usability? Bottom line is whether the users got what they wanted, i.e., is the client satisfied Practically speaking, need to break this down so that we can operationalize our objectives Textbook definition: The quality of an interactive computer system with respect to ease of learning, ease of use, and user satisfaction Can the users do what they want to do in a comfortable and pleasant fashion?

15. Usability Goals Enable you to set goals before starting the project Technology can then be measured against usability goals during evaluations Provide ways of comparing different designs

16. Usability: UIDE* Effectiveness accuracy and completeness with which specified users can achieve specified goals in a given environment Efficiency resources required to achieve these goals Satisfaction comfort and acceptability of the system to its users & others affected by its use *UIDE refers to the textbook User Interface Design & Evaluation

17. Usability goals: ID2* Effective to use Efficient to use Safe to use Have good utility Easy to learn Easy to remember how to use *ID2 refers to the textbook Interaction Design, 2 nd Edition

18. Effectiveness How accurately and completely users can accomplish tasks Examples: If looking for particular information on a website, can the user find correct and complete information? Given information on University websites, could you learn about the meeting time and place for this class and the textbook you needed to buy?

19. Effectiveness Choice of providing training or not Consider task completion unsuccessful if not completed by a reasonable amount of time Challenging to define for creative tasks Directly linked to user needs

20. Efficiency How quickly can users complete tasks? It may be evaluated through time, the number of steps required, or some other measure How long does it take you to find the roster of the University’s men’s and women’s hockey teams?

21. Efficiency A similar measure is how long users think it takes to complete a task Good design: users think it takes less than actual time Poor design: users think it takes longer than actual time Try to see normal, not hurried operation

22. Safety Avoid danger while operating technology Avoid dangerous situations caused by interaction with technology Provide users quick ways to recover Examples BlackBerry thumbs (injury due to repeated use) Mizuho trade blunder

23. Safety Sometimes difficult to evaluate How could a criminal use the technology? Privacy Data security

24. Utility Does system provide enough functionality for users to accomplish necessary tasks? Closer to software engineering testing Example: Does the CS Department’s website offer sufficient information on how to complete a degree?

25. Utility Beware of creeping featurism Adding rarely used features can affect usability for most users Easy access to commonly used features Access to rarely used features for experts

26. Learnability how easy a system is to learn how to use question: How easy is it and how long does it take (i) to get started using a system to perform core tasks and (ii) to learn the range of operations to perform a wider set of tasks?

27. The Ten-Minute Rule (Nelson, 1980) novice users should be able to learn how to use a system in under 10 minutes when is the 10-minute rule appropriate? when inappropriate?

28. Memorability how easy a system is to remember how to use, once learned question: What kinds of interface support have been provided to help users remember how to carry out tasks, especially for systems and operations that are used infrequently?

29. Usability: Shneiderman time to learn speed of performance rate of errors by users retention over time subjective satisfaction

30. Usability: Shackel effectiveness how fast, how error-free learnability how much training, practice, re-learning flexibility is the interface still effective if the tasks and/or the environment changes? attitude Do users like the system? Is it tiring, rewarding?

31. Activity on usability How long should it take and how long does it actually take to: use a VCR to play a video? use a VCR to pre-record two programs? use an authoring tool to create a website?

32. The User Experience How a product behaves and is used by people in the real world the way people feel about it and their pleasure and satisfaction when using it, looking at it, holding it, and opening or closing it “every product that is used by someone has a user experience: newspapers, ketchup bottles, reclining armchairs, cardigan sweaters.” (Garrett, 2003) Cannot design a user experience, only design for a user experience

33. Why was the iPod user experience such a success?

34. User experience goals satisfying aesthetically pleasing enjoyable supportive of creativity engaging supportive of creativity pleasurable rewarding exciting fun entertaining provocative helpful surprising motivating enhancing sociability challenging emotionally fulfilling boring annoying frustrating cutsey

35. Next Time More on the User Experience

36. Key Points users should be involved through the development of the project usabilityuser experience specific usability and user experience goals need to be identified, clearly documented and agreed at the beginning of the project iteration is needed through the core activities